travis johnson

It’s been a while since my last SotM so I thought to get back into it, I would share one of my very favorite Wilco songs. This song was actually written by Woody Guthrie and arranged by Wilco and Billy Bragg for the Mermaid Avenue albums.

This particular recording comes from Jeff Tweedy’s show in Eugene last year. Here you go, Airline to Heaven!

[mp3]http://www.eightfivethree.com/wp-content/AirlineToHeavenTweedyEugene.mp3[/mp3]

No Comments » Categories: Song of the Moment

With KU out, I now have no hope of winning The Eightfivethree Classic. I can’t believe they lost to UCLA.

All that’s left to do is cheer Oregon on to victory.

4 Comments » Categories: Sports

I spent most of the weekend working on Swap-bot, fixing little bugs and adding small features. In between the small tasks I was able finally get the Swap-bot Forums finally added. The Forum is something I started writing a while ago, but never got around to finishing.

It’s built on top of the Zend Framework, which allowed for pretty fast development. When I started working on the project, I wanted the Forum to be some separate bit of code that I could make available to anyone, but decided yesterday it might be a while until I release the code. To make the application useful for Swap-bot I had to write some pretty Swap-bot specific code right into the core and getting rid of that code might take a while.

7 Comments » Categories: Programming

The following are all facts I have compiled and observed about this year’s Eightfivethree Classic.

• 16 entries in this year’s Eightfivethree Classic
• 2 entries missing a champion selection. As commissioner, I have decided to select Oregon for both entries (even though one of the entries obviously doesn’t have Oregon in the finals)
• Scores ranging from 33 to 49
• There is a heavy Oregon and Kansas bias in this year’s Classic. Coincidentally, I have lived in both of states.
• I am five points ahead of my brother-in-law.

And a fact not directly related to the Classic:

• I am in first place in three of the four pick’ems that I am in.

It’s going to be tough when Oregon and Kansas meet in the Final Four. My bracket has KU winning, but I honestly would rather see Oregon win. It was a lot of fun watching Oregon beat Winthrop today and I am a little disappointed in myself for not picking Oregon to win it all. While on the theme of Oregon, I would like to commend the following brackets in the Classic for going all the way with the Ducks:

• The Dude Abides - Cam
• Circle Takes the Square - Dave (1)
• ilovesports - Rachel (2)
• Leunen Lovers - Pat (2)

(1) This choice for Oregon here by Dave deserves an extra-special commendation, as Dave lives in the middle of KU country.
(2) These two entries forgot to pick a champion and, as commissioner, I have chosen Oregon for them.

3 Comments » Categories: Sports

In case you haven’t been following the internet this last week, twitter exploded at SXSW. As a result, I think it became blog-law that you had to make a post about how much you love/hate/don’t understand twitter. I don’t see the need to update the world with my every action, but I do see value in using twitter’s various distribution channels.

One area I see promise for twitter is in the micro-announcements from other web services. For example, I just created a Swap-bot twitter account that gets updated every time a new swap is created. Other twitter members can follow Swap-bot and choose how they want to be updated when Swap-bot updates. I can choose to get an IM, SMS or just a web update. Posting to twitter is just one more way I can hopefully get new people to Swap-bot or remind old members to come back.

No Comments » Categories: Internet

Rachel picked up the new Arcade Fire album, Neon Bible, last week after we saw them on SNL a few weeks ago. The CD’s great. I would highly recommend it.

The reason I felt compelled to post about the CD is because I’ve been listening to the disc in the car for the last couple days and on more than one occasion thought I was listening to Greetings From Asbury Park. There are a couple tracks where lead singer, Win Butler, sounds just like a vintage Bruce Springsteen.

Don’t forget about my last Song of the Moment.

1 Comment » Categories: Music

Can you feel the excitement March Madness in the air? I’m actually in London right now and nobody cares, but I’m sure once I get back to the States it will be electrifying. It’s time for The Fourth Annual Eightfivethree Classic.

March is always a special time for me as I think back to the previous Classics and my many victories. As the Classic nears, I hope to share many fond memories of past Classics, but for now, please sign up at:

Yahoo Sports Tournament Pick’em
Group ID#: 21388
Password: goducks

You won’t regret it!

5 Comments » Categories: General